I've been spending some time weeding through my ridiculously large to be read pile this weekend, after a relatively hectic work-week, so I haven't had much time for reading blogs. But I managed to do a bit of catch-up today. Here are some links that I thought people might be interested in.

This year, for the first time, you can purchase stickers to place on your Cybils finalist and winning titles. All of the information, and samples of the stickers, is available at the Cybils blog.

Speaking of book-related contests, School Library Journal's annual Battle of the Kids' Books starts tomorrow. This contest pits book against book, until a field of 16 is narrowed down to one by an illustrious panel of judges. Betsy Bird has the details at A Fuse #8 Production. You can also follow the action on Twitter at @SLJsBoB or at the Battle of the Kids' Books blog.

At The Reading Tub, Terry Doherty has an interview with Liz Burns from A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy. Terry says: "We *know* a lot about Elizabeth Burns’ book, TV and movie interests from A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, but she doesn’t talk much about her job as the Youth Services Consultant at the New Jersey State Library Talking Books and Braille Center. In fact, she makes it clear on the blog that what she says there is her opinion and not her employer’s. Last fall, after reading several articles about Braille literacy, I asked Liz if we could do an interview."

Speaking of Tea Cozy, Liz has sparked a discussion about the difference between "lit blogs" and "book blogs". All of the discussion is in the comments, so do go beyond the main post if you're interested in this. Personally, right at the moment, I don't have the energy for any clique-ish behavior or finger-pointing. But I'm glad that Liz is sorting things out. [See also Liz's thoughts on the new CommonSense Media ratings at Barnes & Noble's website.]

Colleen Mondor has the 12th edition of her What a Girl Wants series at Chasing Ray, with musings and book recommendations from authors about "Bad Girls" in literature. She says: "This month the panel discusses just what good and bad have to do with sex and the teenage girl, why we persist in labeling girls so much more harshly than boys and books that help readers navigate these ever present and always turbulent teen waters."

And speaking of movies made from books, check out the new Percy Jackson Reads! poster from the ALA store. There are also bookmarks available. I think this poster would be a great classroom addition - let's by all means jump on the coattails of the popularity of the book and the movie and use them to encourage reading. I'm sure that Rick Riordan agrees.

David Elzey continues his great series about building better boy books. Part 7 is about keeping things short. He says: "There are readers, many of them boys, who will pick up that book and judge it by its girth, by its font size, by the amount of white on the page. As a former bookseller, if I had a dollar for every boy I ever witnessed fan a book’s pages as a method for deciding whether or not to read it, I’d have enough money today to buy a small publishing house."

Greg Pincus is offering a free consultation from his blog, The Happy Accident. He says: "At conferences recently, besides doing my main presentations, I’ve also been giving individual, shorter social media consultations (see below for the details of how they work). Because they’ve proven to be so popular, I’ve decided to start offering that same service here through The Happy Accident. To kick this new offering off (and to help celebrate my fourth anniversary of blogging over at GottaBook), I’m going to give one of these consultations out for freeeeeee." Comment by midnight tonight with a recommended blog or blogs to enter. You'll already find a great list of recommended blogs in the comments.

Today is the last day of The Brown Bookshelf's 28 Days Later celebration of African American authors and illustrators, featuring Charles R. Smith, Jr. Of course, one of the great things about blogs is that it's easy to go back and look over the posts from the entire month, if you've missed them.

As reported in Publisher's Weekly, John Grisham announced that he'll be writing a new series of legal thrillers for middle grade readers, starring a 13-year-old legal whiz. Now, I tend to be a bit skeptical about prolific adult authors verging into KidLit territory. But I have to say that I think that Grisham's writing style, as exemplified in his lighter titles for adults, like The Firm, will translate well to books for kids.

And now it's back to my towering stacks of books. Eventually, my creating order from the books will translate into more reviews for you. In the meantime, Terry will have this week's Literacy and Reading News round-Up tomorrow at The Reading Tub.

Comments

Sunday Afternoon Visits: February 28: Kidlitosphere News and Views

I've been spending some time weeding through my ridiculously large to be read pile this weekend, after a relatively hectic work-week, so I haven't had much time for reading blogs. But I managed to do a bit of catch-up today. Here are some links that I thought people might be interested in.

This year, for the first time, you can purchase stickers to place on your Cybils finalist and winning titles. All of the information, and samples of the stickers, is available at the Cybils blog.

Speaking of book-related contests, School Library Journal's annual Battle of the Kids' Books starts tomorrow. This contest pits book against book, until a field of 16 is narrowed down to one by an illustrious panel of judges. Betsy Bird has the details at A Fuse #8 Production. You can also follow the action on Twitter at @SLJsBoB or at the Battle of the Kids' Books blog.

At The Reading Tub, Terry Doherty has an interview with Liz Burns from A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy. Terry says: "We *know* a lot about Elizabeth Burns’ book, TV and movie interests from A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, but she doesn’t talk much about her job as the Youth Services Consultant at the New Jersey State Library Talking Books and Braille Center. In fact, she makes it clear on the blog that what she says there is her opinion and not her employer’s. Last fall, after reading several articles about Braille literacy, I asked Liz if we could do an interview."

Speaking of Tea Cozy, Liz has sparked a discussion about the difference between "lit blogs" and "book blogs". All of the discussion is in the comments, so do go beyond the main post if you're interested in this. Personally, right at the moment, I don't have the energy for any clique-ish behavior or finger-pointing. But I'm glad that Liz is sorting things out. [See also Liz's thoughts on the new CommonSense Media ratings at Barnes & Noble's website.]

Colleen Mondor has the 12th edition of her What a Girl Wants series at Chasing Ray, with musings and book recommendations from authors about "Bad Girls" in literature. She says: "This month the panel discusses just what good and bad have to do with sex and the teenage girl, why we persist in labeling girls so much more harshly than boys and books that help readers navigate these ever present and always turbulent teen waters."

And speaking of movies made from books, check out the new Percy Jackson Reads! poster from the ALA store. There are also bookmarks available. I think this poster would be a great classroom addition - let's by all means jump on the coattails of the popularity of the book and the movie and use them to encourage reading. I'm sure that Rick Riordan agrees.

David Elzey continues his great series about building better boy books. Part 7 is about keeping things short. He says: "There are readers, many of them boys, who will pick up that book and judge it by its girth, by its font size, by the amount of white on the page. As a former bookseller, if I had a dollar for every boy I ever witnessed fan a book’s pages as a method for deciding whether or not to read it, I’d have enough money today to buy a small publishing house."

Greg Pincus is offering a free consultation from his blog, The Happy Accident. He says: "At conferences recently, besides doing my main presentations, I’ve also been giving individual, shorter social media consultations (see below for the details of how they work). Because they’ve proven to be so popular, I’ve decided to start offering that same service here through The Happy Accident. To kick this new offering off (and to help celebrate my fourth anniversary of blogging over at GottaBook), I’m going to give one of these consultations out for freeeeeee." Comment by midnight tonight with a recommended blog or blogs to enter. You'll already find a great list of recommended blogs in the comments.

Today is the last day of The Brown Bookshelf's 28 Days Later celebration of African American authors and illustrators, featuring Charles R. Smith, Jr. Of course, one of the great things about blogs is that it's easy to go back and look over the posts from the entire month, if you've missed them.

As reported in Publisher's Weekly, John Grisham announced that he'll be writing a new series of legal thrillers for middle grade readers, starring a 13-year-old legal whiz. Now, I tend to be a bit skeptical about prolific adult authors verging into KidLit territory. But I have to say that I think that Grisham's writing style, as exemplified in his lighter titles for adults, like The Firm, will translate well to books for kids.

And now it's back to my towering stacks of books. Eventually, my creating order from the books will translate into more reviews for you. In the meantime, Terry will have this week's Literacy and Reading News round-Up tomorrow at The Reading Tub.

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